Cop's Fate In Boyfriend Shooting Mulled

June 17, 1994|By John Gorman, Tribune Staff Writer.

Devastated to hear that her boyfriend had had an affair with another woman, former Island Lake Police Officer Rena Jensen set out to "devastate" her lover by shooting him in the head with her .45-caliber service pistol, a prosecutor charged Thursday.

In closing arguments before Lake County Judge Raymond McKoski, Assistant State's Atty. Georgiann Cerese accused Jensen of embarking on a deadly vendetta after she learned that several years before she started dating Jim Johnson, he had had an affair.

But in his rebuttal, Jensen's attorney said Jensen was trying to save Johnson's life.

The jury was deliberating late Thursday.

Cerese recounted for the jury of 11 men and one woman how Jensen, 31, had attended a fundraiser at a Wauconda-area saloon last July 13 with Johnson, a Wauconda firefighter.

There, Jensen learned of the affair, and Johnson left to return to his trailer home at 26750 Fairfield Rd., near Wauconda.

"(Learning of the affair) was devastating to Rena Jensen," Cerese said. "And it was with this revelation that Jensen set out to devastate Jim Johnson."

Jensen returned to the trailer soon after Johnson, and an argument erupted, Cerese said. Cerese dismissed Jensen's testimony that the gun went off during a struggle with Johnson.

The prosecutor demonstrated her own version of the shooting, grabbing the .45-caliber semiautomatic weapon from an exhibit table.

"She brings the gun down and he ducks, but the bullet goes into his head," Cerese continued, pointing the empty weapon at the middle of the jury box.

"There was no struggle over the gun. You know it didn't happen the way she said it did," Cerese charged.

The prosecutor recalled how Jensen had admitted from the witness stand that she lied when she told police initially that Johnson had shot himself cleaning her gun.

"She said she was a liar. Those were the only truths she spoke," Cerese said. "Tell the defendant you know what the truth is-by finding her guilty."

But Jensen's attorney argued that the truth would free her.

"Rena Jensen should thank the system for having 911 (recordings) because it proves she was trying to save Jim Johnson's life," said Public Defender Joseph Collina.

In the dramatic tape played Wednesday, the jury heard Jensen beseeching the 911 operator to send help and pleading with Johnson not to die.

"Who called 911? Who put the pressure pad on the wound?" said Collina, asking the jury to decide if these were the actions of a woman bent on murder.

Then Collina addressed Jensen's alleged lies in the moments after the shooting.

"The 911 operator asked if he was cleaning his gun, and you hear a pause," Collina said.

Desperately, Jensen then seized on the operator's suggestion "as a hysterical woman trying to gather her wits."

"But most important, Do you try to save the life of the only witness?" Collina asked rhetorically.

In the prosecution's final thrust to the jury, Assistant State's Atty. Matthew Chancey set out to patch any holes Collina might have punched in the state's case.

"There is not a single charge that requires this was premeditated. There is no requirement that she intended to do it 10 minutes before, or 10 seconds before," Chancey said. Chancey said it was only necessary to prove that she intended to kill Johnson when she pulled the trigger.

Chancey outlined how the case had all the elements necessary for a tragedy.

"You had jeaolousy, rage, alcohol and a loaded gun," Chancey said.

In his closing argument, Collina dangled before the jury the option of convicting Jensen of reckless conduct, a misdemeanor.

Chancey argued otherwise: "This is not an act of reckless conduct; it is not what happened here."

He urged the jury to convict Jensen of attempted murder, aggravated battery and aggravated discharge of a weapon.